Wednesday, April 05, 2006

training: day five

there are no sharks in himberg pool.

just flounders. =)

because floundering pretty much describes my swimming form right now.

wow. i am sore! my first lesson went very well, except i was running behind (not late, i am rarely, if ever late) and i was a bit rushed. rucky, i had my suit on under my street clothes, so it was a presto-change-o!

i hate looking like a total dweeb, and i knew my form was wretched so i had signed up saying i had no experience swimming. i grew up on an island! i swam in the river. i also damn near flunked phys ed because of my innate inability to swim properly. so i said i had no experience in the water, thinking no one would be able to tell i could dog paddle.

there's no fooling some people, especially japanese instructors. probably what gave it away was when the instructor asked me if i could put my face in the water. i thought this was a weird request--of course i can put my face in the water, who can't? it's not brain surgery, you just put your face in the water!

so i shrugged, took a breath and plunked my face in, and blew bubbles for a while. when i came back up, she asked me if i could already swim. i thought i would be able to pass as a complete newbie, but no. the instructor sussed out that i'd been swimming before. i asked her how she knew and she said "body language and no fear of the water." so much for starting from scratch.

the instructor asked me why i was taking lessons. i told her that i needed to learn good, efficient technique, because i am going to try to do a triathlon and i need to be able to do a 750m swim (about half a mile). by july!

so my eval: my crawl is sloppy but doable and my breaststroke is pretty good, except for the left foot, which likes to get lazy and "flap" rather than "frog". the arms look good. for that, i would like to thank an old high school friend: jill murray, wherever you are, thank you for showing me the "cookie" trick to help me remember good form for the arm part of the breast stroke! after more than fifteen years, i still remember! i have a habit of bunching up my shoulders and not making myself "long".

my teacher has nice legs! just thought i would add that.

the teacher said that she could tell i liked doing the breast stroke better than the crawl and that i could probably do very well with the breast stroke. i still want to have a good crawl, too so i can switch it up during the tri if i get worn out.

i ended up doing two laps and tiring myself out. by the time i got home, i was hurting. my arms, my legs, my hips were killing me. oh yes, the swim is going to be the hardest part. well, that and having to see myself in bathing suit...oh, the horror, the horror.